News and Events | When Brazil Came to Fife

Dunfermline Athletic have known plenty of surprises down the years, but few can match the news that broke on East End Park in the summer of 1965: the Pars were bringing South America to Fife.

On 26th July 1965, the DAFC board gave the go-ahead to fly over two young footballers from Brazil - Alexandre Gabrielle, just 20 years old, and Joaquim "Chico" Filho, 25 - on the recommendation of an agent named Jose Ramos, who assured the club that both men had starred for Juventus of São Paulo. Manager Willie Cunningham, never a man to shy from a bold move, sanctioned the signings, and Dunfermline suddenly found themselves at the centre of a media sensation. A provincial Scottish club fielding Brazilians was virtually unheard of, and the press could scarcely believe their luck.

The pair touched down in Scotland to genuine fanfare, but bureaucracy soon caught up with romance. The Scottish Football Association refused to let either man kick a ball competitively until clearance arrived from the Brazilian FA - and clearance, as these things tend to do, took its time.

While the paperwork wound its way through the system, Gabrielle and Filho settled into life in Fife as best they could. It was a world away from São Paulo. Dunfermline inside forward Bert Paton took it upon himself to look after Chico, and his memories of that strange late summer have become part of Pars folklore.

"I kind of looked after Chico," Paton recalls. "I took him home for decent meals and things. He was a better player than the big lad [Gabrielle], who was a bit of a poser. The food was very strange to them. They were interested in finding different food to ours and not interested in our fish suppers. Even in those days they were worried about diet."

It wasn`t long before the mystery deepened. Rumours began to circulate that the South Americans weren`t quite what they`d been sold as `” that one or both might in fact be Venezuelan, not Brazilian at all, despite having played their football in Brazil. Nobody at East End Park seemed entirely sure, and nobody from Juventus of São Paulo was rushing to clear things up.

Gabrielle`s Dunfermline career ended before it had properly begun. Released on 14th September without ever pulling on a first-team jersey, he departed with barely a trace `” beyond, perhaps, the memory of a young man better known for his style than his substance. "I think he was just brought along to carry Chico`s case," Paton remembers.

Chico, meanwhile, got his chance. Reported to be a full Brazilian international with three caps to his name - though by now the newspapers had quietly started calling him Venezuelan instead - he was named at centre-forward for the trip to Cappielow on 18th September, lining up alongside a young Alex Ferguson in a Dunfermline forward line that must have felt like nothing else in Scottish football that season. Morton, for their part, might well have wondered where their own exotic import had got to.

The match finished 1-1. Chico neither scored nor sparkled, and Scottish football`s second Brazilian - or possibly Venezuelan `” never got a second chance to prove himself. By the end of October 1965, he too had left Fife for good.

A parting gift

Before he went, Chico left Bert Paton with a memento of the whole strange episode: a pair of his boots. "When they eventually left, Chico said to me, `I want to give you these boots,`" says Paton. "These boots, they were like slippers, such soft leather, and in those days they were nothing like our boots, which were more solid, stronger built. I was running about, showing off these new boots and all the other young lads were jealous. But with them being so soft, they ruined my two big toe nails. They got bruised to bits because they had no protection from players standing on your feet like our own boots had, no toe-caps. So they didn`t last very long. I swear my toes have never been right since."

It was a fittingly odd footnote to a story that never quite added up - two young men, arriving from the other side of the world with a big reputation and murky paperwork, who left almost as quickly as they came. Neither Gabrielle nor Filho made any lasting mark on Dunfermline Athletic`s history in terms of goals or appearances. But in the annals of East End Park, few signings have ever generated quite so much intrigue, or quite so good a story - right down to a pair of ruined toenails, still remembered more than half a century later.